Preparing for Fall and Winter Steam Sales (thx Snowden!)

[HaemishM]

Left 4 Dead 2 is free right now on the store, assuming you can actually connect.

I was wondering wtf was up with Steam.

Motherfuckers. That's why I can't get Football Manager 2014? /sadf

[Hawkbit]

Hopefully they get it sorted; I was about to spend some cash.

[Rendakor]

Managed to snag the L4D2 free, thanks Trippy.

[Chimpy]

Thanks for the heads up, Trippy. Yet another game I will probably never play in my steam library 

[Trippy]

Store seems to be better now.

[HaemishM]

Store is working. Finally made my first real game purchases - Football Manager 2014, Papers, Please and State of Decay. Also snagged Hearts of Iron 3 on Amazon for $2.50 (the full collection was $30 if I wanted the Steam edition and I did) and managed to get Left 4 Dead 2 free as well.

[Yegolev]

Apparently they aren't using AWS.

[Der Helm]

They don't sell Football Manager 2014 in Germany ? Wtf ?

[schild]

Woke up and people had voted on Dream over Deadly Premonition. :(

[Signe]

I figure the only way you can avoid being disappointed by people is to stop waking up.  I'm just about there myself.

[Paelos]

I have no idea what to vote on, it all looks like indie crap for the most part.

Did I mention how much I hate that indie often = stupid platformer?

[HaemishM]

The flash sales and vote sale choices have almost all been indie stuff and what wasn't indie has been mostly disappointing.

[HaemishM]

Was going to buy Don't Starve for $1.19 - adding some other stuff to the cart, came back and it was $5.09. Removed it. Went back to the main page, then the store page and the 2-pack was $1.79. Added that to the cart. Went back to something else, it changed prices to $7.49. WTF?

[Paelos]

Was going to buy Don't Starve for $1.19 - adding some other stuff to the cart, came back and it was $5.09. Removed it. Went back to the main page, then the store page and the 2-pack was $1.79. Added that to the cart. Went back to something else, it changed prices to $7.49. WTF?

PRICE CHECK FAIL

[Rendakor]

Is Fallen Enchantress any good? If so, should I buy just the new expansion, or is the original worth playing?

[Trippy]

Stardock.

[Thrawn]

Debating snagging Prison Architect at $15...

[Kail]

Is Fallen Enchantress any good? If so, should I buy just the new expansion, or is the original worth playing?

I haven't played the base game, only played about 24h on the expansion (which is a standalone game) but in my opinion:

It's... okay... it's like a crappier version of Fall From Heaven without any of the diversity.  It looks nice, and there are some cool things it does (town building feels fun to me, and heroes are way more manageable than they were in FFH, and it's got Master of Magic style tactical battles).

My biggest gripe is that the engine seems really shaky... like I'm perpetually thirty seconds away from a crash.  It does crash a lot, but it also has a lot of weird bugs where the game just stops and you don't know if it's frozen or what and then a few seconds later it starts up again.  When I hit "next turn" the mouse cursor changes to an hourglass to show that the CPU's thinking, then changes back to normal to show that the CPU's done, then freezes for a second or two before the next turn starts.  I don't know if that's normal, but the whole thing just feels shaky as hell.  It's not the worst game ever or anything, but it's nowhere near the level of Master of Magic or Fall From Heaven.

[Rendakor]

I haven't played the base game, only played about 24h on the expansion (which is a standalone game) but in my opinion:

It's... okay... it's like a crappier version of Fall From Heaven without any of the diversity.  It looks nice, and there are some cool things it does (town building feels fun to me, and heroes are way more manageable than they were in FFH, and it's got Master of Magic style tactical battles).

My biggest gripe is that the engine seems really shaky... like I'm perpetually thirty seconds away from a crash.  It does crash a lot, but it also has a lot of weird bugs where the game just stops and you don't know if it's frozen or what and then a few seconds later it starts up again.  When I hit "next turn" the mouse cursor changes to an hourglass to show that the CPU's thinking, then changes back to normal to show that the CPU's done, then freezes for a second or two before the next turn starts.  I don't know if that's normal, but the whole thing just feels shaky as hell.  It's not the worst game ever or anything, but it's nowhere near the level of Master of Magic or Fall From Heaven.

Stardock.

Ok, gonna pass. Thanks.

[schild]

I'm pissed that Anno still has Tages.

[Trippy]

Yeah fucking Ubisoft, though UPlay isn't much better.

[Merusk]

I hate Fallen Enchantress because it fails to do what it promised during development; bring Master of Magic to the 3d realm.  None of the unit or even race diversity. Shitty, shitty below-indy models and a beyond horrible technology tree.

It's like Wardell never played the original, just heard it was Civs with turn-based combat.

[Paelos]

Yeah fucking Ubisoft, though UPlay isn't much better.

I have very few problems now with UPlay's interaction with Steam other than when it updates. That being said, I will never buy an Ubisoft game for more than $10 because of it.

[Lightstalker]

Is Fallen Enchantress any good? If so, should I buy just the new expansion, or is the original worth playing?

I have 171 hours of play according to Steam, but I think $10 is too much to pay for it(!).  We have a thread about the original and it has gotten less worse technically but still isn't a good game by any stretch.  I played the expansion (Fallen Enchantress) mainly to see how steam would handle a badly implemented game.  Good news is that it probably won't crash on your or destroy itself like the original.  Bad news is that the game is still largely interesting for its potential rather than what it actually shows you through the gameplay.  Oh, and it takes a god's age to get through a game, the game is slow even when there is nothing for you to do as the turns crawl by.

3+ years on and the expansion contains the start of what could become a good game... but at this point the graphics are woeful, occasionally the AI still forgets to play its turns, the pacing and power are uneven, it will still crash - even on Steam, often the achievements won't trigger, sometimes scripted events in the world won't trigger, etc. etc. etc.  Don't play this and definitely don't go find and play the original.

[Setanta]

Damn, I was about to pull the trigger on Fallen Enchantress  

Farcry 3 any good?

All I've bought this time around is DLC for Van Helsing.

BTW, WTF - I went to play my copy of L4D2 that I bought via the UK - it's now installed with the Aussie censorship even though it had the original content when I first played it.

[schild]

So I bought the DLC for Van Helsing also, played through as a Thaumaturge.

I can't recommend that to other people. The vast majority of epic/unique items you get from sidequests and such are Hunter-Only. Which is super obnoxious. Why they didn't get replaced based on the character you've chosen is beyond me.

[Mithas]

I have no idea what to vote on, it all looks like indie crap for the most part.

Did I mention how much I hate that indie often = stupid platformer?

I am so sick of platformers. If I click on an indie title and the genre says platformer, I stop there.

[Hawkbit]

Just a head's up on Brothers:  I'm pretty sure it's part of PSN+ for January, so don't buy if you want for free there.

[Paelos]

I saw Rome 2 once in a vote, and it didn't get picked. Otherwise I haven't seen it up on the sales, or AC3, which was the other one I wanted.

[Sky]

Just a head's up on Brothers:  I'm pretty sure it's part of PSN+ for January, so don't buy if you want for free there.

Speaking of heads-ups, the description of Snow says it's early access for a f2p game...so you probably shouldn't drop $7.50 on it unless you REALLY need to play now. It does look like a cool game, but what up with that.

[luckton]

Speaking of heads-ups, the description of Snow says it's early access for a f2p game...so you probably shouldn't drop $7.50 on it unless you REALLY need to play now. It does look like a cool game, but what up with that.

Money Hats require money in order to be made.

[KallDrexx]

The number of early access and indie titles stealing the flash sales makes me sad.

[luckton]

The number of early access and indie titles stealing the flash sales makes me sad.

I agree. I'm not that big of an indie fan. I like that their work and talent is getting the tools and support they need to finally get noticed and compete on a grander scale, but if all they're gonna do is cock-block the bigger-budget titles, people might start looking elsewhere.

[Paelos]

If Steam starts turning into a bullshit version of Kickstarter on every sale I'm not going to bother with them.

[Kail]

I saw Rome 2 once in a vote, and it didn't get picked. Otherwise I haven't seen it up on the sales, or AC3, which was the other one I wanted.

AC3 is on sale (not flash sale or anything, regular sale for the full duration of the holiday event) for like 75% off, making it like eight bucks which was cheap enough for me to snag it.  An extra 5% or so isn't going to mean much to me at that price.

Sales seem weird this year, too.  Sometimes, flash sales are deeper discounts than daily deals, sometimes daily deals are better discounts than flash sales.  I don't know what to think anymore.  Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

edit: nope, I lied, the AC3 sale is because AC4 was a daily sale a day ago and the rest of the series was discounted too, and they stay discounted for a day afterwards.  Argh, my bad.